and intellectual acquirements of the two lovely visitors, altogether banished sleep from my pillow. Many a long waking dream had I; but when exhausted nature would be no longer denied, real dreams of halcyon days crowded on my fancy, succeeded by others intensely painful-dirk ings, drownings, and all horrible imaginings kept me in a miserably perturbed state, until blessed, unbroken repose did at last overcome all, and I slept sound.

I awoke betimes, and I need hardly say paid more than common attention to my toilet. Everything in my small valise was ransacked, which could improve personal appearance. I tried to look my very best, hoping to realize one or other of the overnight's waking dreams. After a careful scrutiny I walked down into the parlor, and although it was but a few minutes past seven, I did not doubt to find at least one of the blue-eyed belles there before me.

But I was doomed to disappointment; the room had not the least appearance of having been arranged, or even entered, since the family left it. I therefore determined to pay a visit to my faithful friend Stately. Before I reached the stable, he heard and knew my step, and as usual on my morning visits, expressed his joy by that peculiar sort of neigh, which doubtless gives rise to the phrase, hore-laugh, and all will admit it to be mightily like the cachinnations of some men when unusually tickled!

The late Charles Matthews could imitate to perfection, what he called the laughter of animals, as exemplified in men, and maintained that a shrewd observer could easily detect amongst divers of his acquaintances, the blat of the goat, the bark of the dog, the bray of the ass, the grunt of the hog, the crow of the cock, and the snicker or neigh of the horse: and he held the doctrine, that this is a proof of the transmigration of souls! but that is a ratiocination which few except the Arabs will admit.*

I found a man busily employed grooming my horse preparatory to feeding him, and having requested the animal might then be saddled, I returned to the parlor. It was now fully half past seven, but still there was no appearance of the family! I took a turn in the garden, and

had I not been a little on the fidget, there was much in it to interest, but I felt fearful of losing even one moment of the pleasant intercourse I expected, and soon retraced my steps. Instead of the ladies, I found one of the maid-servants engaged in arranging the room! Again I went forth; the morning was lovely, the sun shone out in full splendor, all nature seemed revivified and fresh, the late rains had washed bush and shrub. On this occasion, intending to make sure the family should be assembled before my return, I went into the church-yard, a place where none can visit without advantage, at least I am sure I never did, or without feeling myself a better man. I have spent many, many hours in churchyards, and not a few in that identical one, where Gray wrote his celebrated Elegy

some reminiscences of which may follow hereafter. I strolled about, reading names and dates and ancient inscriptions, fully expecting every moment would bring me a summons to the breakfast table. A glance at my watch told it was now the appointed hour, and so, for the third time, without summons, I returned to the parlor ;-still there was no appearance of the family, nor any prepations for breakfast, the cloth was not even laid! Not a little chagrined, I took up a book, and looked in it a full quarter of an hour, but without reading one word. Patience is a virtue, most certainly. Half past eight. Enter one of the damsels with a bouquet of flowers in a china vase, which she placed on a side table.

My girl," said I, "may I inquire when the family generally breakfast" "Nae particular time fixt, sir," said the lass; and I fancied, as she turned her head from me, I detected something like a smile curling the corner of her mouth, but I might be mistaken; she was a pretty merry looking girl, and her smile, if she did smile, might be a natural habit.

Fifteen minutes more, and all was quiet and still up stairs. I could have detected the slightest movement of the lightest foot. I felt mortified, provoked, humbled and hungry: and observing the girl crossing the hall, inquired whether she could furnish me with paper and ink. These were speedily placed before

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Lang life t' ye then," said the lass, into whose hand I immediately slipped half a crown, and in less than five minutes I was clearing the heath along the burn side at a rapid rate, nor cast one longing lingering look behind. All's well that ends well!

It is difficult to conceive the contrast which light or darkness throws upon objects unknown. On arriving at the point where the stream crossed the road, and which night had in appearance rendered so formidable, I was surprised to find it might have been crossed without the least difficulty. It is true, the water in the channel had run off, and had considerably diminished, owing to the steepness of the declivity, but I could scarcely believe it was the same place at which my horse had shied. A quarter of an hour's ride along the bank of the Devron, brought me to the ford, where the river was smoothly gliding over a wide expanse of hard firm chingle; it was

passed with ease, and I was soon at my friend's house in Huntly, doing ample justic to a capital breakfast.

On mentioning to him my disasters of the preceding evening, and their delightful termination in the hospitable reception at the manse of G ** together with my severe disappointment in being obliged to leave it, without seeing the young ladies, whose favor I so much desired to propitiate; I was surprised and nettled to find my friend burst into loud fits of laughter. Nothing could restrain him, until in right earnest, I demanded an explanation.

How is it possible I could know an entire stranger?"

Not know her! Not know her! I did not believe there was a young fellow in Scotland so ignorant; why, man, you have drank her health a hundred times! Yes," said he, emphatically, "a hundred times, to my certain knowledge. Nay, I really think I have heard you-you, yourself, propose her health! You need na glower like a gilpie, in that gait!"

"Drank Mrs. C.'s health a hundred times, and proposed it too? By all that's sacred, I never saw, heard, or thought of her, before last night!"

My provoking tormentor again burst into ungovernable fits of laughter, whilst I"glowered" at him, racking my brains to fathom the mystery, but all in vain.

Come, Lawson," said I, "I can stand this banter no longer; out with it, or by the Lord I'll throttle thee.”

With the most provoking grin, looking me full in the face, and advancing his own close to mine, he replied, making a long pause between every word: "Poor --fellow-poor-ignorant-fell-ow, how -I-pity-you. And yet, how-I envy you. Did-you-ever-hear-of-Mary --Scott?"

"MARY SCOTT-the ROSE OF MORAY the PEARL OF THE NORTH!" said I, starting from my chair.

"Even so, most noble noodle; that was Mary Scott-and yesternight--the second of her honeymoon! and the blueeyed belles were her bridesmaids, and that sugared cake which you gobbled so greedily (I wish it had choked you) was her bride-cake!! Lucky, enviable, ignorant dog, where was all thy boasted penetration? Thy sojourn among the Highland hills and Highland lairds, with their abominable glenlivat, hath addled thy noddles, rendered thee as blind as a bat, and as dull as a donkey."

Deeply did I groan in spirit, and admitted all he charged upon me. A thousand recollections rushed across my brain. Reminiscences of convivial parties, where the name of Mary Scott, the Rose of Moray, acted like an electrical charm as the standing toast amongst the students of Kings and Marischal Colleges. The idolizing admiration and attentions of her enraptured husband, his reluctance to be broken in upon by a stranger, the white dresses of the ladies, the smile upon the girl's face when she said no breakfast hour had been fixed: all now flashed upon me, in confirmation of what was so tardily communicated. The supreme beauty and extraordinary charms of the lady, were now no longer a subject of surprise. I no longer wondered at the inability of the enamored bridegroom to keep from her side. But how perfectly vexatious it seemed I should have been in entire ignorance of the fact; how differently, I thought, I would have conducted myself. I sat in silence, biting my lips and revolving it all, over and over. My friend sat silent too, enjoying my confusion. At last he abruptly broke out, "You must stay and dine with me; I will draw a long cork, and enable you once more to toast The Pride of the North, and all happiness to her and the man of her choice; meantime, as you have never before been in Strathbogie, you must walk up the hill with me, and view the beauties of Huntly Lodge; for the Marquis and his mother, the bonny Duchess, left it immediately after the marriage, for Gordon Castle, and you will find a fine subject for your sketch-book, in the majestic ruins of the family castle, and you shall dance the reel of Bogie at

night. "Kings may be blest, but we'll be glorious."

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Lawson laughed at the aptitude of my quotation, and inquired whether it was not an invention of my own for the nonce. I assured him that Alaster Sibbie, one of the old Scots laureats, was "the maker," in a lilt he composed in praise of three of the Queen's maids of honor, whom he styles Bessy, and Lily and Tibbie," the latter of whom filled a very exalted station, when Her Majesty attended the Chapel Royal. My friend pressed his invitation, and on second thought, the proposal, with its accompaniments, was too tempting to be rejected; the whole would occupy but half a day; I could easily reach home by the following noon, and so it was agreed and arranged. We visited the beautiful residence of the gallant young Marquis, whose heroism in the field well sustained the hereditary title of "Cock of the North;" and I made an accurate sketch

of ancient castle Huntly, which is still carefully preserved in one of my early sketch-books. We spent a delightful morning, and enjoyed, nay reveled, in our afternoon's symposium. The claret sparkled in bumpers to the health and happiness of The Rose of Moray and her beautiful bridesmaids. Mr. Lawson and his sister hastily invited a few young friends for the evening, who with light hearts and lighter heels verified the song,

"And there we sat up a' the night,
Wi' song and glee, till broad day light,
With lasses fair, and clean and tight,
Dancing the reel o' Bogie."

So finished my adventures on the banks of the Devron.

And now I would ask the reader whether the reason which Mr. C. had, for being a little chary in admitting an entire stranger to his house, at such a time, and on such an occasion, was or was not orthodox ?

HASTENING to leave the ice-bound North, we descend into a sunnier clime. On the banks of the Rhine, among castellated hills and vine-clad slopes, we find poetry as rich and various, as the materials of poetry are manifold and inexhaustible. The number of poets in Germany is immense; and where all are striving after excellence, it would be singular if there were not many who attained it. But it is not the number, nor the excellence alone, of German poets, which makes them interesting to us beyond those of any other nation. Connected as are the English and German peoples in lineage, in language, in manners and in feeling, the literature of each is all but vernacular to the other. In the last century, the writers of England, Pope and Young and Thomson were much read, admired and imitated in Germany. Since the beginning of the present century, the great writers of Germany have been no less read, admired and imitated among ourselves. That a powerful influence has been exerted in this way on the literature of England and America, is a fact, which all admit and some deplore. For the last twenty years, the translations which we have made from the German alone are perhaps scarcely less numerous than those made from all other languages taken together. If, in other parts of his work, the editor may have found difficulty in consequence of the scantiness of his materials, his

difficulties here would arise from their abundance and variety; it must be no easy matter to segregate from this enormous mass that which is best and most characteristic. Let us follow him in the execution of his task, appropriating, here and there, a snatch of verse, to serve as a specimen of the specimens which he has selected.

After a few short pieces of the most ancient German poetry, we are introduced to the Troubadours of Deutschland, the Minnesingers of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In their writings we find the efflorescence of that devotion to woman, which formed one of the principal constituents of chivalry. Love-lorn professors of the joyous science, they thronged the courts of the Swabian Emperors, singing in strains endlessly varied, yet singularly monotonous, the joys and sorrows of an amorous heart. He who should judge them by the standards of the present day, would condemn them as affected and extravagant; but their numbers and their popularity should convince us that they expressed, in no inappropriate forms, the genuine sentiment of the age in which they lived. It is not to be supposed that a mere fancy or fashion could have swayed, for more than a hundred years, the poetry of a whole nation

-we might even say, a whole continent. The rise of Austrian ascendancy was contemporaneous with the decline, or, more truly, the sudden and complete dis

appearance of the Minnepoesy. It would seem as if the influence of Austria had always been hostile to everything beautiful and free. From Johann Hadloub, one of the last of the Minnesingers, we take this pleasing and characteristic song. The translation is by Edgar Taylor. "I saw yon infant in her arms caressed,

high:

And as I gazed on her my pulse beat Gently she clasped it to her snowy breast, While I, in rapture lost, stood musing by: Then her white hands around his neck she flung,

And pressed it to her lips, and tenderly Kissed his fair cheek, as o'er the babe she hung.

And he, that happy infant, threw his arms Around her neck, imprinting many a kiss ;

Joying, as I would joy, to see such charms, As though he knew how blest a lot were

his.

How could I gaze on him and not repine? Alas!' I cried,' would that I shared the

bliss

sweet trace,

And joy the while went bounding through my breast."

Germany, like Greece, has her tales and legends of a heroic age. The Heldenbuch and the Nibelungenlied, like the Iliad and Odyssey, serve as grand repositories of ancient national traditions. Of these, the Heldenbuch is a collection of pieces by various authors, and differing widely in character and merit. The Nibelungenlied, on the other hand, is a true epic, with perfect unity of plot and action, advancing with ever-increasing interest to the bloody catastrophe in which it terminates. It is curious to survey the world which these ancient poems open to our view-definite, populous, active, teeming with life and motion. In their palace at Worms, upon the Rhine, we see the royal brothers, Günther, Ghernot, and Ghiseler the young. Round them stand their chosen blades, the champions of the Burgundian people, Dankwart, Ortwin, Vol

ker, the fiddler-warrior, and, towering above all his peers, the fearful Von Tronek Hagen, dauntless, unscrupulous, vengeful and remorseless. Far away, in the land of the Nibelungen, situate in some undiscovered region of earth, shrouded perhaps by the mist and fog (nebel) from which its name might seem to be derived, dwells the gay and gallant Siegfried, the Achilles of this German Epos. To the South lies Bern, the centre of another circle of heroes, including the Lombard warriors, Dietrich, Hildebrand, Ilsan, and others, who show themselves in no wise inferior to the bravest of the Burgundians. Eastward, on the Danube, we find the pagan Etzel, or Attila, with his terrible Huns, the scourge of Western Europe. Nor ought we to omit, while enumerating the principal figures of this Epic cycle, the two queens the Amazonian Brunhild, jealous and imperious-and Chrimhild, beautiful and gentle, but driven by repeated injuries into diabolical rancor-whose hostile collision brings about the catastrophe that desolates this heroic world.

These poems, at least in their present form, were in great part the productions of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

Up to this time, the poetry of the Germans might safely challenge comparison with that of any other European nation. But the promise of its spring was not to be realized. A period followed of corruption and decline. During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, flourished the Mastersingers, who made poetry a mere handicraft. Meanwhile, the vigorous minds of Germany were occupied with other matters. They had to invent the art of printing; to commence and carry on the Reformation; to fight for civil and religious freedom. The struggle for liberty was long and doubtful. After many partial encounters came the great decisive conflict in the first half of the seventeenth century. For thirty years the torrent of war rolled hither and thither over the soil of Germany. Freedom triumphed ; but the country was exhausted, physically and intellectually. It was not until the commencement of the last century that the spirit of German poetry began to revive. Things grow better by slow degrees. A period of utter barrenness is followed by a period of moderate fertility. The interval between the years 1700 and 1750 is the age of mediocrities. It is the age of Bodmer, Hagedorn, Gellert, Gleim and Ramler. But just at the middle of